Benjamin Mayo

The Apple Store is down ahead of iPhone 11 preorders later in the day. In fact, the store message even reminds people of the new time for the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro order window: 5 a.m. Pacific Time, or about six hours from now.

When the store is back up, the iPhone 11 will be available to buy, starting at $699 for 64 GB. The iPhone 11 Pro will be priced at $999 and the iPhone 11 Pro Max will be priced at $1,099, with a 64 GB base model SKU and storage upgrade options for 256 GB and 512 GB.

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Apple Card is expanding its 3% Daily Cash offer again. Wallgreens today announced it is partnering with the Apple Card to offer 3% cashback on any Walgreens purchases, starting tomorrow.

You have to use Apple Pay, but the cashback applies to any purchases made at Walgreens retail stores, Walgreens website, or the Duane Read chain of pharmacies.

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The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max go up for preorder tomorrow. At the event, Apple touted the A13 Bionic as its fastest yet, and now we have more visibility into what that means.

A Geekbench report supposedly shows that the iPhone 11 Pro CPU is about 15% faster than the iPhone XS. The benchmark also says that the chip has 4 GB of RAM; the same amount found in iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. However, this number is disputed…

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Apple didn’t talk about the HomePod on stage but it has quietly updated the product pages with some announcements.

Firstly, the radio stations feature is launching on HomePod on September 30. However, the previously-announced multi-user support and the music handoff features are not coming in September. Apple simply says ‘later this fall’. They also teased a new white noise mode that they hadn’t talked about before…

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Apple has had a reputation over the last few years of becoming increasingly expensive. Across 2018 especially, some events infamously saw every product see a base price rise by 10-20%.

This time around though, Apple bucked the trend. From its services to its hardware, Apple maintained or reduced prices. The company was particularly aggressive with lowering prices of its generation-old devices.

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Over the last year, Apple made a big deal about how the iPhone XR offers the longest battery life ever in an iPhone. Customers appeared to love it too, with even many tech reviewers choosing the XR over its more expensive siblings due to the extra hours of longevity.

Now, all the new phones, from iPhone 11 to iPhone 11 Pro, best what the XR could manage. However, Apple has changed up how it measures battery life which makes it a little complicated to compare between models…

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Update: Apple has released macOS Catalina 10.15 beta 8, as well.

Apple is today releasing the third developer beta of iOS 13.1 for iPhone and iPadOS 13.1 for iPad devices. The company today announced that iOS 13.1 would ship on September 30, a few weeks after iOS 13.0 drops. Apple has also released the GM seed for iOS 13.

iOS 13.1 brings back several features that were originally in the iOS 13 betas, but were removed to be worked on some more. Apple also announced a few new features today, targeted at the new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models, that will become available in iOS 13.1

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Today, Apple announced that its video subscription service, Apple TV+, will be available starting November 1 and priced at just $4.99 per month. 

As well as iOS devices, Macs, Apple TV, Samsung TVs, and more, Apple TV+ content can also be watched on the web. The web app will go live at tv.apple.com when Apple TV+ launches.

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Apple today announced the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, which include an Ultra Wideband spatial location chip as noted on their tech specs page.

However, Apple glossed over this detail in the event. It’s also notable that the widely rumored Apple Tag, expected to be similar to a Tile tracker, was not unveiled today. The Tag was expected to work in concert with the UWB location features of the new iPhones…

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Apple officially announced the siblings to the iPhone 11 — the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro Max — as successors to iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The prices are the same as last year, $999 and $1,099. Preorders start Friday at 5 a.m. Pacific Time.

There’s a new midnight green color, a refreshed space gray and silver, and a new gold finish. Apple is also touting a wider dynamic range display called Super Retina XDR. And yes, it has a new triple camera system — a triangular array of lenses in a rectangular camera bump.

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Apple today showed a trailer for its upcoming drama thriller See featuring Jason Momoa. The show plot revolves around what would it be like if the human race was blind.

This is the sixth trailer for Apple TV+’s lineup shows. Apple also said that its trailers to date had been viewed over 100 million times.

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Apple today announced that its Apple Arcade video game subscription service is launching later this month, alongside iOS 13. Arcade games span Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and Mac. For mobile platforms, all titles are exclusive to Apple Arcade and not available through the regular App Store.

Apple is launching Apple Arcade on September 19, and it is priced at $4.99 per month. This includes up to six members in your family. You can try Apple Arcade with a one-month free trial.

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As is tradition, the Apple Store is down ahead of today’s Apple event.

Apple is expected to announce a trio of new models; the iPhone 11, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Pro Max flagship phones for the holiday season. The event kicks off at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

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In an interview with the New York Times, Apple executives Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue revealed that Apple has adjusted the App Store algorithm to ‘handicap’ its own apps from appearing too much in search results.

Following press attention from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Apple found that the App Store was deciding to show a lot of Apple apps for common search terms. For instance, a search for ‘music’ would show not only Apple Music but up to seven other first-party apps in the first ten spots.

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The Chinese Labor Watch group released a lengthy report alleging several violations of Chinese law against Foxconn, the key iPhone assembler. Apple said it investigated and denies most of the allegations but did say that it found Foxconn’s iPhone factory workforce was made up of 50% temporary labor, way above the 10% rule according to the law.

Although Apple nor Foxconn will say explicitly, this is clearly a result of the usual supply chain rush to manufacture Apple’s new iPhone models, believed to be called iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, ready for the September sales season.

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Update: Bloomberg is also reporting that the Apple logo will be centered on the new iPhones.

The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro lineup is set to be revealed in a week and a half, and naturally, we mostly know what to expect: a big focus on camera improvements thanks to the new triple-camera system.

Whilst the shape of the overall chassis is not changing, we are expecting some tweaks to the back of the phone. This obviously includes the bigger square camera protrusion, but also some new color options and matte glass instead of glossy finishes. Photos posted to Slashleaks show another small design change: the Apple logo has been moved downwards and is now centered vertically and horizontally.

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Longtime HomeKit accessory maker Eve Systems today announced a handful of updates to its smart home range. The Eve Extend is finally shipping and available to buy, allowing Eve users to connect its Bluetooth accessories to the full range of your home Wi-Fi network.

Eve also unveiled Eve Water Guard, a smart water detector coming next year, and enhancements to its Eve Thermo smart radiator valve. The company is also debuting an EU version of its Eve Light Switch, launching in countries beyond the US this October.

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Apple is apparently readying a new under-display integrated Touch ID fingerprint sensor “as early as its 2020 iPhones” next fall, according to a report today from Bloomberg. The report says it would be an addition to the existing Face ID authentication and unlock system, allowing users to authenticate with either fingerprint or face biometrics.

The publication says the feature may slip to 2021. This echoes a timeframe suggested by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said Apple would launch an iPhone with both Touch ID and Face ID in 2021.

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